Sergei Chapnin: what are the consequences of the refusal of the Russian Orthodox Church to take part in the Pan-Orthodox Council?
By Sergei Chapnin
The Pan-Orthodox Council, which is officially called “Great and Holy,” will not take place as planned. It has disintegrated before our eyes just two weeks before it opens. Of the 14 local Orthodox Churches, four have refused to attend.
And even those which have not refused to attend are fiercely critical of the prepared documents. What has happened? Can it be that the problems and internal conflicts in the Orthodox world are so serious that it is no longer possible to hold a Council? Theological and historical problems are here closely intertwined with church politics.
On 13 June, an extraordinary session of the Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church was held. One single item was on the agenda: to go or not to go to the Pan-Orthodox Council. The prognosis was negative but some hope still remained. In the end there was nothing sensational. The Synod reached a decision not to take part in the Council and gave a far-reaching explanation of its position.
But whatever the arguments, the main result is clear: the Patriarch of Moscow has torpedoed the running of the Council. This Council will no longer be authoritative, even though Bartholomew, Patriarch of Constantinople, the first among equals in the Orthodox world, is determined to see it through, no matter what.
Earlier, the Bulgarian, Antiochian, and Georgian Churches had refused to participate in the Council. The formal reason given was a serious critique of the documents. It appears that there were many theological objections, even though preparation for the Council had been going on for the past fifty years, and several generations of bishops and theologians had been preparing these documents.
The Documents
The final versions of the Council documents were published at the end of last winter, and elicited a serious critique not only from Orthodox fundamentalists, but also from moderate hierarchs and academic theologians. Questions of dogma associated with the fundamentals of Orthodox doctrine are not examined in these documents. The central part is taken up with questions of ecclesiology—how the Orthodox Church sees itself in the contemporary world. These presented a number of problems.
The document which has been criticized most of all is the document called “Relations of the Orthodox Church with the Rest of the Christian World.” Traditional Orthodox ecclesiology clearly regards all other Christian groups and communities as being heretical. This applies to Catholics, Anglicans, and Protestants. At the same time, in the 20th Century, as a result of the development of the ecumenical movement, contact with them has been actively improving, and the expression “Christian churches and confessions” has become normal.
Critics of of the document, have proposed to refuse the use of all innovations and to return to the traditional attitude to those Christians who do not belong to the Orthodox Church, in particular the Bishops Council of the the Russian Church Abroad: “Nowhere in the text is the separation between Christians defined, in terms of the rules of the Holy Fathers and the canons of the councils, as a consequence of schisms and heresies (what is even more surprising is that these terms are completely absent from the text)…. Instead of this, the document adopts the quasi- ecclesiastical approach, according to which the divisions are regarded as a form of broadly understood ‘Christian unity’….which is applied far beyond the boundaries of ‘the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church’ and includes many other confessions” (1).
What do these apparently abstract arguments have to do with real life? Everything. In February of this year, Patriarch Kirill of Moscow met with the Francis the Pope of Rome. Many called this meeting historical, and there were hopes of a new stage in cooperation within the Christian world. However, if the document on “Relations of the Orthodox Church with the Rest of the Christian World” does not preserve its fundamental principles, then the meeting with the Pope will be classified as a meeting with a heretic and should be condemned. Active cooperation with Catholics and Protestants in the sphere of education and charitable work will be put in doubt. Of course, to some extent it will be retained, but it will be in clear contradiction with the the official position of of the Orthodox Church.
Another example of contention concerns the document “The Sacrament of Marriage and its Impediments,” specifically paragraph II.5.i. The Church of Georgia is critical of most of the documents and proposes to exclude from the document on the sacrament of marriage the concluding part of the paragraph on marriage with non-Orthodox: “[T]he first part which states that, ‘Marriage between Orthodox and non-Orthodox Christians is forbidden and is not blessed in the Church, according to canonical akribeia (Canon 72 of the Quinisext Ecumenical Council),’ is correct, but the second part which states that ‘such a marriage can be blessed by dispensation and out of love, on the condition that the children born of this marriage will be baptized and raised within the Orthodox Church,’ should be excluded, as it contradicts Canon 72 of the Council of Trullo”(2). It is well known that no council can challenge, annul, or change a single canon of the recognized Ecumenical Councils.
This is clearly at variance with the practice followed by many churches. One simple example: imagine that some ruler of Russia has a daughter, who lives in Holland, and intends to marry a Calvinist Dutchman. The pious ruler asks the Patriarch of Moscow to conduct the marriage service. But the Patriarch refuses, saying that in 2016 a decision was taken not to bless marriages with non-Orthodox in an Orthodox Church. The ruler is aggrieved, and the Patriarch, on seeing this grief, begins to think how to circumvent this ban. Does the Patriarch need such problems? I think not. In other words, the Council will be discussing questions which will seriously influence the situation of the Orthodox Church in the contemporary world.
